BEA Show Notes, Day 1, Brian's Take

"We all know how the industry is performing overall," said Balis, "But we're being given very aggressive target numbers."

Silverman noted that "Revenue models are not going to stay the same. We have to expand the ways we can sell into [other] channels."

Fleck Nisbet noted that her three main goals are to "Leverage content, grow direct-to-consumer relationships and increase commerce."

Shanley concluded, noting that "The chance of a CEO or COO coming out of Business Development is well within our sights."

Also at Publishers Launch, Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis, in a presentation called Publishing and Platform Wars: Big Tech Players, Their Strategies, and How they Impact the Publishing Business, took a look at the ways Apple, Android, Amazon and the like are positioned to impact publishing now and into the future. Tablet devices, he noted, have already eclipsed desktop computers in sales and are on the verge of overtaking laptops.

"Apple and Android have already won," said Evans of the platform wars, where those two titans' operating systems reign supreme. "It's unlikely that other platforms, such as Windows Phone, Blackberry or others, will be relevant." In presenting what he called his "comedy slide," he plotted Amazon's revenue (ever increasing) against its net income (flat, hovering around zero) before pointing out that Amazon is not managed to be profitable now, it's managed to maximize the company's future value. A chilling thought for some publishers for sure. (View his slide deck here: http://www.slideshare.net/PublishersLaunch/benedict-evans-mobile-is-eating-the-world)